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The Next Big Thing? Fog Computing

Nowadays most IT companies have adopted the concept of cloud computing into their processes and are using it in some sort of capacity. But if most predictions about the Internet of Things (IoT) will come true, even just the most expected, the distributed cloud architectures won’t be able to handle the IoT’s data and communication needs. That’s where a different approach is coming into view: Fog Computing. Let’s find out what does this term mean and what challenges and advantages we can be waiting for.

The Internet of Things is making its first steps in the tech world, but the first challenges have already appeared – the data volumes being produced by networked devices worldwide can’t be transferred quickly and effectively to the cloud. That’s because nearly all the information collected by IoT devices is sent directly to the remote cloud for processing and storage. According to some forecasts by Cisco, by 2020 as many as 50 billion devices are going to be connected via the Internet of Things.

So Cisco has presented a new model for analyzing and acting on IoT data – Fog Computing which is a distributed computing infrastructure in which some applications are handled at the network edge inside of the IT organization and some application services are handled in the cloud data center.

The key points of Fog Computing:

It analyzes the most important data at the the network edge, close to where it was generated instead of sending vast amount of raw IoT data to the cloud;

It acts on IoT data in milliseconds, based on its policy and principles;

It sends the selected data to the cloud service for further analysis if needed and for long-term storage.

The main benefits of this new model:

1. Greater business agility and innovation.

Fog Data Services can bring new revenue opportunities to IT organizations. With the right tools, developers can quickly develop fog applications and provide new services. Such applications and services could allow data to be stored, analyzed, and communicated close to the source.

2. Improved network security.

IT organizations can protect the fog servers using the same policy, controls, and procedures that they use in other parts of the IT environment. Companies can use the same physical security and cybersecurity solutions.

3. Deeper insights with improved data policy.

You can analyze important and sensitive data locally instead of sending it to the cloud for analysis. The IT team inside of the organization can have full control over the devices that collect, analyze, and store data.

4. Lower operating costs.

Fog computing can conserve network bandwidth and lower operating costs while reducing the amount of data that is analyzed and stored in the cloud.

So the future of Fog Computing will be discussed a lot during the next few years. Not so long ago Cloud Computing was also considered by many experts as nothing special with few real prospects for future success.